Left4Dead Meets Dead Rising In Dead Island

Dead Island is all about survival on a zombie-infested island with a major emphasis on melee combat. Which was the last game with these gameplay mechanics? dead or Dead ? Dead Island seem to have taken the best gameplay elements from both games. Let’s see how they stack up.

Story

Dead Island is set in the Palms Resort, in fictional Banoi, located in Papua New Guinea.

Main character wakes up during the night after partying, to find there has been a zombie outbreak and most of the island’s inhabitants have been killed.

The first mission serves as the tutorial. The character is trapped in a beach hut with other terrified survivors. One person begs the character to go outside and help a lifeguard fending off the horde.

The character then picks up a dingy paddle and walks outside and the same lots of zombies, blood everywhere, gross but fun experience triggers.

Characters

There will be four playable characters in Dead Island, Xian Mei (a staff member at the hotel), Logan (a surfer), Sam B (a former rapper) and Purna. All four are in the Hero category. Heroes are immune to the zombie infection.

Enemies

Details about specific in-game enemies has been sparse, but a few enemies have been confirmed. These are “The Suicider“, a large enemy with boils upon its body, heavily disfiguring it.

“The Butcher“, a humanoid-shaped man with long hair, and missing both arms from the elbow, with only bones sticking out of the sockets.

“The Ram“, a large man wrapped in a strait-jacket with a mask covering his mouth.

Finally, “The Drowner“, another large disfigured enemy covered in slime with large red eyes.

Gameplay

Dead Island will feature open world gameplay, played from a first person perspective, with up to four-player co-operative play (local and online) in a sandbox and heavily interactive environment.

There is an experience system and a skill tree system. There is also a stamina bar, meaning that after a set amount of action with a weapon, the character will need to stop to regain their stamina before continuing to attack.

It has also been confirmed that there are “special class” zombies (Tanks ?), which are more powerful than the standard enemies.

Also during night time and other areas of darkness, players will need to use flashlights giving players a suspenseful feel to the game.

Contrary to the depiction in the trailer, there will apparently be no children zombies in the game.

During recent Demo, Developers Techland showcased not only gameplay mechanics but as well as how to kill a Zombie tricks.

Combat is all about maintaining your stamina. Attacking, running, jumping, and other such activities would all cut into your stamina bar, which would refill quickly provided you didn’t do much more than walk a few steps.

Without stamina, you can’t defend yourselves. This made battles against large numbers of enemies especially challenging because your initial urge is to lash out wildly at everything in sight.

As you became more accustomed to the fighting, you learn–in perhaps the same way a real survivor would in this scenario–to stop and think.

Taking that extra moment to line up a killing blow to the head and not waste energy makes all the difference in these encounters. Throwing a (sharp) weapon is another great way to conserve stamina.

Sending a knife or a machete through a zombie’s head at a distance is just as effective as in melee, and you can retrieve it from the corpse afterward.

However, even with these skills, you can end up getting surrounded due to the sheer number of zombies. When you are surrounded, it’s time to use one of your special abilities.

“Fury”, among one send your character into an adrenaline-fueled rage, allowing you to hit harder, faster, and with less of an impact to your stamina.

Using your special ability you can track zombies, so none will be able to escape your wrath. Though effective, this ability takes a long time to recharge, so you cannot rely on it too heavily.

It comes down to the choice when you want to use your special abilities since their use comes at price, should you use them when surrounded or trigger them as a last resort ? decide when you play the game.

Dead Island will be available on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC later this year.